11 september

Jupiter skrev:

Icke att förglömma att det är 31 år sen, den USA understödda, militärkuppen i Chile. vilken krävde betydligt fler liv än attackerna den 11 september 2001.

Hadde hänt ändå, presidenten var ju marxist och röstades in 1970 med bara 36% av rösterna och tappade snabbt allt auktoritet i sin egen regering, inte helt oförväntat drevs landets ekonomi snabbt i marken av hans ekonomiska reformer och två oppostionspartier krävde hans avgång.

Militären tog till vapen efter presidenten vägrade avgå, detta skulle ha hänt vare sig USA gav tillstånd eller ej.

His Divine Shadow skrev:

...detta skulle ha hänt vare sig USA gav tillstånd eller ej.

Om man nu var så säker på att det ändå skulle ske, då är det väl ännu mer omotiverad för amerikanarna att med våld påverka Chiles inrikespolitik och framtid, än vad folk tidigare trott?

His Divine Shadow skrev:

Jupiter skrev:

Icke att förglömma att det är 31 år sen, den USA understödda, militärkuppen i Chile. vilken krävde betydligt fler liv än attackerna den 11 september 2001.

Hadde hänt ändå, presidenten var ju marxist och röstades in 1970 med bara 36% av rösterna och tappade snabbt allt auktoritet i sin egen regering, inte helt oförväntat drevs landets ekonomi snabbt i marken av hans ekonomiska reformer och två oppostionspartier krävde hans avgång.

Militären tog till vapen efter presidenten vägrade avgå, detta skulle ha hänt vare sig USA gav tillstånd eller ej.

Med andra ord.. du tror inte på demokrati? För det är ju det du säger.

Var har jag sagt det? Enda jag har gjort är att påpeka händelsernas förlopp och deras orsaker.

His Divine Shadow skrev:

Var har jag sagt det? Enda jag har gjort är att påpeka händelsernas förlopp och deras orsaker.

Ditt citatet: "Militären tog till vapen efter presidenten vägrade avgå, detta skulle ha hänt vare sig USA gav tillstånd eller ej." är nog en alldeles egen bedömning av händelsen, som du naturligtvis får står för själv.

Så har inte jag bedömt händelsen, därav mina synpunkter.

Hur har du bedömt händelsen då?

Vad gjorde amerikanarna med våld förresten? Som jag sett så stödde dom oppositionen och lade press på presidenten och spred propaganda, men jag har inte sett att dom åkt dit och slagit folk på käften.

USA har mer eller mindre styrt hela utvecklingen i Latinamerika under 1900-talet.

En av många källor på nätet skrev:

...Men framtiden är oviss och USA har vid oräkneliga tidigare tillfällen bevisat att man är kapabel att gå fram med gränslös brutalitet i sina ingripanden i Latinamerikas inre angelägenheter (två CIA-stödda militärkupper i Ecuador på 60-talet, CIA:s störtande av vänsterregeringen i Guyana på 60-talet, den CIA-ledda invasionen och terrorbombningarna av Guatemala 1955, kuppen i Chile 1973, marinkårens ingripande mot folkliga demonstrationer för demokrati i Dominikanska repoubliken 1965, CIA:s terror mot Nicaragua under 80-talet, CIA:s medverkan i störtandet av Haitis folkvalde president Aristide 1991 och det massiva USA-stödet till folkmorden på indianbefolkningarna i El Salvador och Guatemala är bara några av exemplen på detta). ...

Händelsen i Chile är inget undantag. USA har medvetetet saboterat flera demokratiksa val i Latinamerika, och CIA har systematisk demolerat demokratin i dessa länder.

För inte så länge sedan gick det en dokumentär om CIA på någon av SVT:s kanaler, kommer inte ihåg vilken. Där gav gamla CIA-rävar ungefär samma analys av USA:s historia i latinamerika under 1900-talet, som citatet ovan.

Antalet trakasserier, bojkotter och kuppförsök mot Cuba, kan exempelvis anses oräkneliga. Där "grisbuket" tillhör ett av många fiaskon, och där försöket med att *förgifta Castros raklödder tillhör det mest patetiska. USA har styrt Latinamerika i mer eller mindre detalj under 1900-1960 och därefter. Låter märkligt att någon fortfarande tror något annat, i denna upplysta tid.

*Källa SVT:s dokumentär om CIA.

Det är upplyst att ifrågasätta.

Personligen tycker jag BBC är en opartisk och pålitlig källa, hadde en väldigt bra dokumentär om Chile, därifrån jag fått mycket källmaterial.

Men du svarade inte på min fråga om Chile och USA så jag antar att jag accepterar din eftergift om Chile och USA's påstådda våldsamheter där.

Och att USA har försökt sabotera vänster regeringar över världen, såklart dom har försökt det, detta var en del av det kalla kriget, vet inte var du fått idén att jag inte fattar detta med tanke på att vi aldrig ens diskuterat nått annat än omständigheterna till kuppen i Chile, nog för att det du citerat är lite väl överdrivet och vinklat, vet inte ens om jag vågar tro på vissa saker, antar jag får gå igenom påstående efter påstående..

Ta President Aristide t.ex. ?
Du kanske ser hur din källa låter som den tar varje möjlighet att hacka på USA istället för att försöka vara opartiskt. Du ser Aristide inte var precis populär hemma med sin regering och oppositionen gjorde en kupp(några bevis på CIA's medverkan i detta vore ju bra, wikipedia nämner inte nått sånt), Aristide kom tillbaka till makten tack vare att USA lade press på Haiti skicka trupper till Haiti(Källa: Wikipedia.org).

Aristide spent his exile in Venezuela and then in the United States, working hard to develop international support. Under U.S. and international pressure, the military regime backed down and U.S. troops were deployed in the country. On October 15, 1994, Aristide returned to Haiti to complete his term in office.

Varför skulle USA hjälpa honom tillbaka om dom ville bli av med honom i första taget?

Jag är säker på att USA gjort många misstag och fel, som att t.ex. stöda Saddam och hur Chile slog tillbaka på dom med Pinochet(USA visste inte om Pinochet och den roll han fick, det slog tillbaka på dom) men allt det som kastas på dom i t.ex. länken du ger är ju uppenbarligen vinklat emot USA och inte opartiskt.

Jag är inte ute efter att försvara USA, det går inte eftersom dom gjort sin del av skit, men jag vill ha opartisk fakta, inte vinklade anti-usa propaganda eller den extrema högern's fascist nonsens som försöker ursäkta allt USA gjort.

edit:
Vill du hacka på nått riktigt kan du ta Nicaragua, det var ett riktigt "clusterfuck" av USA...

Kan man inte byta ut 'USA' mot t.ex. 'Bush' i de föregående texterna? Det verkar mer rättvist än att döma hela landet för vad dess ledare håller på med.

Något som uppenbarligen väldigt många har svårt att förstå.

Vi diskuterar väl händelser som inte endast har med Bush administrationen att göra, men poängen står, man borde göra skillnad på den nuvarande administrationen och USA som helhet.

Dessutom har Bush administrationen gjort så mkt skit att det kan vara svårt att hitta nånting att faktiskt försvara där.
Bush administrationen är den värsta på länge i min mening.

Någon sa något om att någon inte tror på demokrati. Vad är det för konstigt med det? Jag tror varken på direkt demokrati eller representativ demokrati. Det fungerar inte i praktiken.

Jag är lite cynisk till demokrati men jag tror ändå att det är den bästa modellen som vi har jämfört med allt annat vi prövat.

Politik! Jag flyttar tråden bort från caféet.

oelbal skrev:

Någon sa något om att någon inte tror på demokrati. Vad är det för konstigt med det? Jag tror varken på direkt demokrati eller representativ demokrati. Det fungerar inte i praktiken.

Direkt demokrati är en ren omöjlighet idagsläget, det kan jag hålla med om. Jag har mycket svårt att förstå de som argumenterar för denna form av styre. Det är en utopi för de som inte får sina kanske för extrema åsikter igenom.

His Divine Shadow skrev:

Jag är lite cynisk till demokrati men jag tror ändå att det är den bästa modellen som vi har jämfört med allt annat vi prövat.

Och samtidigt rättfärdigar du en blodig diktatur med att Allendes administration "gjorde fel".. Är du säker på att du är för demokrati, det bygger ju lite på att man accepterar den parlamentariska vägen. Du kan som bekant inte ha kakan och äta den.

Casca, jag har inte givit nått stöd för Pinochets diktatur, jag har bara pekat ut att USA's roll i den inte är så stor som sagts.

Men om du vill så kan jag säga att jag tycker hans diktatur så ledde i längden till ett bättre land(lesser of two evils är talesättet), hadde Allende inte stoppats(han var ju ändå påväg att starta en kommunistiskt diktatur, dom hann helt enkelt inte innan dom blev stoppade) så hadde Chile idag varit sydamerikas Nord Korea(källa: Norman Friedman's The Fifty Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War), nu har dom istället en återhämtad ekonomi och en fungerande demokrati som har alla tecken på att den kommer att fungera länge än.

Betyder det att jag tycker hans diktatur var bra? Nej såklart inte, hans regering dödade runt 3-4 tusen människor bland annat och han borde ställas inför domstol för sina brott.

Här så har jag ett urklipp ur källan jag citerade, först litet om författaren.

Norman Friedman is a strategist particularly concerned with the interaction of policy and technology. During the Cold War he worked for eleven years at Herman Kahn's Hudson Institute, a major think tank, ultimately as its deputy director of national security studies. Since then, he has been a consultant to the U.S. Navy and to a variety of government and private defense organizations. He has written books on the U.S. Navy's maritime strategy of the Cold War and also on the 1990-91 campaign against Iraq. An internationally known specialist in the fields of weapons design and development, Dr. Friedman has written highly respected design histories of U.S. Navy carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and small attack craft, in each case integrating an account of technical change with the accompanying strategy which often drove it. He has also published studies of the Cold War revolution in naval warfare, of carrier aviation in the Royal Navy, of naval radars, and of U.S. naval weapons, as well as a comprehensive series of books on world naval weapons systems. Dr. Friedman's articles have appeared in a number of journals and newspapers, and he contributes a monthly column on world naval developments to the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. He is frequently seen on television as a commentator on defense affairs and on military history.

**Part Five: The West on the Defensive.

Chapter 31: Peace without Victory.

Pages: 365-372.**

The latter stages of Vietnam coincided with Nixon's attempt to head off what he feared would be a Communist takeover closer to home, in Chile. In 1970 Salvador Allende, an avowed lifelong Marxist, won a 36.3 percent plurality in a three-way election against the Christian Democrats and the conservative Nationals. That was much the sort of percentage the Communists had achieved in postwar Czechoslovakia. In Chile it meant that nearly two-thirds of the voters did not want the Marxist society Allende and his popular front allies of the UP (Unidad Popular: Socialists, Communists, and Radicals) offered.

The election had to be decided by the Chilean Congress. The U.S. government considered Allende (a member of the Socialist rather than the Communist Party) probably a Communist, and in 1964 it had helped finance the opposition that had defeated him in an election. This time the CIA warned that although Chile could hardly be considered a strategic prize, a Communist victory there would have devastating political and psychological effcts throughout the hemisphere.( 53 ) Kissinger did not "see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."( 54 ) Nixon ordered a covert campaign against Allende. It failed; the Christian Democrats backed him in Congress after passing a statute limiting his power. He agreed in writing not to abandon democratic methods, and also not to form a workers' militia. The Christian Democrats thought that, however Marxist Allende might be, they had guaranteed against a takeover. However, the UP included not only the professedly legalistic Allende but also much more raucous revolution-minded elements.( 55 ) In any case, Allende could claim to be the first Marxist president elected anywhere in the world in a free election.

Allende's victory could, moreover, be seen as part of a larger left-wing movement in much of Latin America. In Peru, a left-wing military junta seized power in October 1968, and in Bolivia an extreme left-wing government took power in October 1970. Neither the Bolivian nor the Peruvian regime seemed nearly as threatening to the U.S. government as the Chilean one, presumably precisely because Allende had gained office by constitutional means and was thus far more legitimate than the other rulers. Moreover, as the hopes raised by Kennedy's Alliance for Progress failed, it seemed to many in Washington that only Chile, with its democratic government led by Eduardo Frei, was left as the last best hope in Latin America. Allende's success thus seemed particularly devastating. Now the Left appeared to be the wave of the future. The ongoing U.S. failure in Vietnam seemed to show that the country had lost the quality of decisiveness or aggressiveness that impressed those in Latin America. Fidel was macho; the U.S. government evidently was not.( 56 ) This view was reinforced by the traditional and very widely held view throughout the continent that the United States was the key exploiter and the cause of most problems. In a popular Chilean joke, for example, the natural reaction of a man who finds his wife in bed with another man is to break the windows of the American embassy.( 57 ) On this basis, it was much easier for Chileans who resented Allende's downfall to blame American intervention than to accept that the coup was essentially a local phenomenon, supported by (but not caused by) the U.S. government. U.S. power over events was much more limited than many wanted to imagine.

As elsewhere in Latin America, the Left was divided between what might be called a Communist Establishment, personified by Allende, and much more radical groups espousing immediate revolutionary action: Maoists, Guevara-ists, Trotskyites. A British historian, Alistair Horne, visiting Chile in 1971, thought that Latin America would be the ultimate battleground where the Soviets would have to fight the Maoists for domination of the world Communist movement.( 58 ) His perception may explain some of the unwillingness of established (Moscow-oriented) Communist parties to help Allende and others on the left in Latin America during the 1970s.

Chileans soon learned that the presidency had enormous powers. Allende exploited heretofore-obscure laws to control the Chilean economy.( 59 ) For example, under a 1932 law, a government arbitrator (intervenor) could be imposed on a business which could not meet its obligations, or which was accused of "financial irregularities". This bankruptcy law was used creatively to seize control of private businesses. The private banks were quickly nationalized under this law, no additional legislation being needed. In the case of Ercilla, a leading weekly unfriendly to the new government, an intervenor was brought in after a three-week strike. He imposed an increase in wages that the parent company said would force it to declare bankruptcy. The intervenor vetoed this. As a consequence, other, healthier publications owned by the same company were bled white to keep the magazine afloat. The law was also, of course, applied to U.S.-owned companies.( 60 ) Ultimately Allende's government controlled 60 percent of the Chilean GNP.

A Marxist state was quickly created. Allende redistributed income to the UP's generally impoverished supporters.( 61 ) Expenditures on social programs rose from an average of $562.8 million in 1965-69 to $1,012.6 million in 1972.( 62 )

Opponents found themselves virtually powerless, althought there was a widespread sense that Allende was systematically violating the constitution. By late 1971 they were taking to the streets in protest, most famously housewives in Santiago banging their empty pots in December 1971, during a visit by Fidel Castro. Allende's left-wing followers began to attack his opponents. The two parties that had opposed Allende in 1970 were forced into alliance. They represented a clear majority of Chilean electors.

Nixon and Kissinger had never abandoned their enmity for Allende. They proposed support for a military coup, but the CIA pointed out that the Chilean commander in chief, Gen. Carlos Prats, was a strong believer in the constitution; the military was unlikely to intervene. Instead, they attacked the Chilean economy. Even without any action on their part, the effect of rapid nationalization and politicization would have been to damage the Chilean economy very badly. In effect Nixeon and Kissinger exacerbated the effects of Allende's policies. For example, farms nationalized under a policy much like Soviet collectivization could not produce enough food, so Allende had to import it.( 63 ) In 1970, Chile imported 19 percent of her food ( $193 million ). In 1972 that rose to about 35 percent ( $400 million ). The projected 1973 import cost was $650 million. There were also acute shortages of consumer goods.( 64 )

Chile's main source of hard currency was copper, which before Allende was produced in U.S.-owned mines. When the mines were nationalized, key technicians left, but numerous UP political workers were hired. The result recalled what happened in the Soviet Union, where Stalin had imagined that political spirit could be substituted for expertise. Between 1970 and 1973 employment increased by 45 percent, but per capita production fell by 19 percent (by 28 percent in one mine).( 65 ) It did not help that the U.S. ex-owners sued the Chilean government, drastically reducing export sales of the copper that was mined, or that the miners themselves were furious to discover that their new government could not provide them with the increased wages agitators had promised in the pre-Allende days.

Fortsättning:

It was never clear just how devoted Allende was to the limitations he had accepted in 1970. For example, a few months after taking office he told a French revolutionary, Regis Debray, that he had signed as a "tactical necessity."( 66 ) Throughout his regime, he attacked the opposition press and television stations, although he could not quite close them down. For example, as he nationalized the Chilean economy, he was able to starve most newspapers of advertising. He also tried to starve them of newsprint; orchestrated labor problems and plant seizures; juggled prices to attack them; and tried to dry up their finances.( 67 ) Presumably much of the U.S. money spent in Chile was used merely to keep the opposition press alive. In addition Allende moved to replace the judicial system with one based on "socialist legality" in which neighborhood tribunals could seize property.

Allende now tried to temper his revolution to convince the Christian Democrats to form an alliance. That failed, and through 1972 the Chilean economy continued to deteriorate. It probably did not help that beginning 1971 radicalized workers began to demand that the government expropriate their plants. In October 1972 Chilean truck drivers and small shopkeepers struck, afraid that even their very small firms would be seized. By the end of 1972 the Chilean balance of payments was $400 in debt, compared to the $28 million in surplus when Allende took office.( 68 )

Allende now made a key mistake. He invited the Chilean military into his cabinet in hopes that the army could quell growing disorders. Up to that point, in keeping with a long-held tradition, the army had carefully avoided political involvement (several attempted coups had ended in farce largely because of this attitude). Now some form of military rule became quite conceivable.

New congressional elections were due in March 1973. The Chilean army's view was that its role was to establish order so that the elections could proceed. The elections produced another anti-Allende majority, roughly 56 to 44 percent, even though Allende had tried to bring more supporters into the electorate by enfranchising the illiterate (and younger voters).( 69 ) The Chilean Supreme Court and the congress both declared that Allende had violated the constitution, yet Allende seemed unstoppable.

Allende's UP included the MIR, which had begun as a guerilla movement in 1965. Like the Vietnamese Communists, it had advocated revolution via a general strike and uprisings by "popular militias" in the cities, coordinated with a protracted guerilla war in the southern provinces.( 70 ) Its central committee had gone underground in 1969, but Allende had pardoned them when he came to power. In theory his election should have made such action unnecessary, but the MIR strengthened once Allende took power. Allende himself clearly was close to the MIR; he made some of its members part of his personal bodyguard.( 71 )

The movement's chiefs told its followers that Allende's victory had been no more than a temporary setback for the ruling class; he was no Lenin. By mid-1972 it had built a power base, including its communal governments and its militias, in the belts of nationalized plants in Santiago, the Cordon de Curillos.( 72 ) To many middle-class Chileans, the MIR was the illegal arm of Allende's revolution. While his government used existing laws to squeeze them, it winked as the MIR evicted landowners from their properties. The government ordered the police stand aside.( 73 ) There was a widespread belief that the government hoped that its conservative enemies would go outside the law to deal with the MIR, giving it an excuse to crush them.( 74 ) Through 1972 Chilean society increasingly polarized, right-wing militias forming to oppose the MIR. In January 1973 Allende said that if the military tried a coup he would go underground in Chile rather than flee to Cuba.( 75 )

Allende certainly showed no interest in curbing the MIR, and his government helped arm it. Late in 1971 unmarked Cuban aircraft began arriving at the airport in Santiago every Saturday night, their deliveries bypassing customs. These shipments ended after they attracted attention. In 1972, however, it was reported that the Chilean national airline, LAN, was shipping in weapons.( 76 ) Two government-owned metal companies began making bazookas, and rubber truncheons and government-made gas masks were in evidence at many left-wing rallies from late 1972 on. Huge caches of mostly Czech-made arms were found after the coup, and the government claimed that over two thousand foreign weapons instructors (including Cubans, Czechs, and East Germans) were in the country (the government had covered their arrival by not releasing immigration statistics for the past two years). The instructors' presence in the industrial belt had first been reported early in 1973. The MIR militia seemed to be Allende's private army.

Having brought in the army to restore order, Allende had to allow it to search for the illegal arms the MIR had cached. Through the summer of 1973 there were frequent clashes as this was done. However, Allende refused the army's demands that the guerilla bases, many of them in the cities, be eliminated or that the MIR be outlawed.( 77 )

Allende had curbed leftist guerillas only twice. In July 1971 an extremist group, the VOP, whose members Allende had pardoned, killed an ex-minister of the interior. The Christian Democrats demanded that VOP and other paramilitary groups be crushed, but Allende attacked only the VOP; he did not touch the MIR. About a year later a previously unknown "16 July Commando" unsuccessfully attacked Allende's home. There was speculation that the real motive had been to give Allende an excuse to attack Chilean conservatives.

Castro had known Allende for years. When he visited in November and December 1971 he chided Allende for his constitutionalism; Socialism, for Castro, required a dictatorship backed by real fear.( 78 ) Castro made his Santiago embassy his largest in the world; its personnel outnumbered those of the Chilean foreign ministry. Reportedly Castro supplied Allende's personal bodyguard, which was distinct from the detectives surrounding him. One of his men, who had been in Bolivia with Che, married Allende's daughter Beatriz. The Cuban DGI was active in Santiago. Given Castro's rapprochement with the Soviets after the 1968 Czech invasion, the visible Cuban activity was surely carried out with Soviet agreement or even encouragement, but at a slight distance. That the Chilean Communist Party within the UP advised caution also suggests that the Soviets did not want to be held responsible for the coming takeover.

To many on the Right, Allende seemed to be Sukarno in 1965. He was not quite a Communist, but he was the Communists' (or radical leftists') path to power. His private army would destroy the last barrier, the constitutionalist military. The word "Jakarta" began to appear on walls in Santiago.

To many on the Left, Allende was the best chance in years to establish a new "socialist" regime. Allende welcomed refugees from the many failed left-wing operations throughout South America. Ultimately Chile would presumably have become their base. Nixon and Kissinger had been right: Chile might not have any direct strategic value, but its fall would probably have had important effects throughout South America.

The Soviets provided support in the form of about $400 million in project aid and import crdits through late 1972.( 79 ) Unfortunately what Allende needed was imports from the west, and for that he had to have more hard currency -- which, before the fall 1973 explosion of oil prices, the Soviets lacked. They had, moreover, just made a huge wheat deal with Nixon, which may have consumed what hard currency they could have spared. Thus in December 1972 Allende asked the Soviets for $500 million in credits and hard currency, and got only more useless trade credits and an offer of $50 million in arms (which was not made public). Chilean foreign exchange had been exhausted by April 1973. It is not clear to what extent Allende's government managed to obtain Western European, Latin American, and even Chinese credits, but clearly they were not enough.( 80 )

The March elections and subsequent court and congressional actions split the Chilean military. Initially its commander, General Prats, wanted to continue within the government. The army was by no means wedded to the existing social system. Like many others in Latin America, it had absorbed the American idea that society had to be reformed to survive. However, the MIR presented a distinct threat, and by 1972 its agitators were trying to undermine military discipline. Moreover, the military had failed to control rising violence, partly because radicals in Allende's government refused to control violence from the Left.

Tension increased; Allende's friend, Regis Debray, said that "eveyone knew" that the president was playing for time "to organize, to arm, and to co-ordinate the military forces of the UP parties."( 81 ) In June 1973 a right-wing militia, Patria y Libertad, tried to coordinate a coup with a Santiago-based armored regiment. Word leaked, and the coup fizzled. One column did make for the center of the city. It was noteworthy that Allende's supporters, the Santiago workers, did not come out, as Allende expected, to oppose the coup. Prats resigned in August after a delegation of generals told him that he no longer had their confidence. Allende appointed another constitutionalist general, Augusto Pinochet, to replace him.

Suck, forsättning igen:

Pinochet believed that the military had to save the constitution by overthrowing Allende. In September 1973 Allende was planning a plebiscite to endorse his presidency, and presumably to give him a mandate to overturn Congress. That alone would have alarmed the Chilean military. Later the military claimed that after the March election left-wing ultras in the government had been working to complete their takeover; a detailed death list was supposedly found in the safe of Communist Deputy Minister of the Interior Daniel Vergara. The generals claimed that the takeover plan would have been executed on Chilean Independence Day, 18 September. They themselves planned to use forces assembled for a parade that day to take over Santiago, but then moved the coup up a few days, perhaps as a result of discovering an attempted naval mutiny at Valparaiso. The coup actually began when ships there bombarded leftists in the town.

As the coup began, Allende appealed to the workers supporting his government. As in the earlier attempted coup, they refused to rise. Allende found himself isolated in the presidential palace with his closest associates. Refusing to surrender, he was attacked by air force jets and by army tanks. The situation having proved hopeless, Allende died, probably by his own hand.

In the past, the Chilean army had sometimes stepped in to halt what it considered an unconstitutional government, then quickly removed itself from power. This time it stayed; Pinochet made himself president in 1974. He never formed any mass movement on the theory that Chile really needed to be depoliticized so that it could recover economically. Perhaps the Left demonized him because it had seen Allende as the beginning of a future in which the people would sweep it into power in many countries. Surely it would take something (or someone) very unnatural to disrupt that popular trend. It was unacceptable that it was Pinochet who was riding a popular wave. The Left claimed, for example, that during the coup the Chilean military killed thirty thousand people. The true figure was probably no more than a few hundred.( 82 )

As for Nixon and Kissinger, unquestionably they exacerbated the crisis in which the Chilean military acted. However, they spent very little money and probably had little influence.( 83 ) It was the Chileans who ousted Allende. That was much the same situation as in Indonesia a decade earlier; the United States was clearly friendly to the coup, but it did not cause it.( 84 )

After the coup, Pinochet created a police state. He sought to destroy the UP altogether; his secret police hunted down (and often tortured and killed) its adherents.( 85 ) they also went abroad to reach out to kill enemies such as Orlando Letelier, Allende's former ambassador to Washington. Hundreds of thousand of Chileans left the country. Democracy was not restored until 1990. Nine years later, many Chileans credit Pinochet with saving them from chaos and Communism, but others feel that he deserves punishment for the "dirty war" which followed the coup, and for a repressive dictatorship.

From a Cold War perspective, Chile offered both sides some very important lessons. Communist parties elsewhere in the world, particularly in Italy, learned that equivocal victories could be quite dangerous. For Americans, Allende's acceleration to the Left and his support by the Soviets and their proxies suggested that Nixon and Kissinger had been right: Communists would abandon democracy whenever it suited them, and they would never renounce armed struggle. Moreover, the destruction of Allende's economy and the crucial role of hard currency may have foreshadowed Reagan's economic attack on the Soviet empire in the 1980s.

That the Chilean Communists, presumably following Soviet instructions, had counseled against radicalism and the MIR, meant little; Moscow did not want to be implicated directly in a left-wing coup. If the reports of Czech arms and Czech and East German instructors were correct (and they predated the coup), then the Soviets clearly supported the MIR and its radical friends. That Allende was, and continues to be, a hero to the liberal Left may demonstrate yet again that the Western liberal Left never quite understood that the Communists were not its brethren.

What is clear is that the United States did not oppose Allende simply because he expropriated U.S. property. By the late 1960s several Latin American armies had accepted (or invented) Kennedy's earlier idea, that economic revolution was necessary and inevitable. They rejected the complementary idea that linked such changes with democracy. They put left-nationalist systems in place to preempt Communist takeovers. The main examples are Peru (October 1968), Panama (October 1968), Bolivia (September 1969, against another military regime), Ecuador (March 1972), Honduras (December 1972), and Uruguay (June 1973). In the case of Peru, the army essentially adopted much of the platform of the MIR guerillas it fought down: it attacked an "unjust social order" and the "abandonment" of source of national wealth; it instituted agrarian reform.( 86 ) In Uruguay the impetus was a fight against Tupamaro urban guerillas, much of whose platform the army took over.( 87 )

These armies were by no means necessarily pro-American. In most cases left-nationalism meant expropriating U.S. property. In no case did the U.S. government try to overthrow such regimes. It had probably learned the lesson of Nasser: a true nationalist is preferable to a puppet that will be vulnerable to Communist attack. In the case of Panama's Gen. Omar Torrijos Herrera that meant a foreign policy centered on recovering sovereignty over the Panama Canal.( 88 )

His Divine Shadow skrev:

Jupiter skrev:

Icke att förglömma att det är 31 år sen, den USA understödda, militärkuppen i Chile. vilken krävde betydligt fler liv än attackerna den 11 september 2001.

Hadde hänt ändå, presidenten var ju marxist och röstades in 1970 med bara 36% av rösterna och tappade snabbt allt auktoritet i sin egen regering, inte helt oförväntat drevs landets ekonomi snabbt i marken av hans ekonomiska reformer och två oppostionspartier krävde hans avgång.

Militären tog till vapen efter presidenten vägrade avgå, detta skulle ha hänt vare sig USA gav tillstånd eller ej.

Socialdemokraterna och G. Persson har bara stöd av cirka 36 procent av dem som gick och rösta. De borliga vill gärna att Persson avgår. Ska vi sätta in militär mot Rosenbad, eller? Genom att stödja den USA understöda militärkuppen stödjer man Pinochets 17 åriga militärstyre.

De som var emot hans ekonomiska reformer var de som förlorade på dem, vilket var de som hade ruffat åt sig pengar och makt genom att trycka ner andra.